Pliers



United States Patent Office 3,044,081 Patented July 17,1962

3,044,081 PLIERS Jewell Robinson, In, 523 Division St., Alton, Ill. Filed Oct. 25, 1959, Ser. No. 848,700 .7 1 Claim. (Cl. 7-5.5

This invention relates to pliers and in particular to electricians pliers.

Standard electricians pliers of the wire cutting type, while they form a part of every electricians kit, have limited utility. They cannot be used elfectively for wire stripping, nor are they well adapted to pig-tailing. Accordingly, electricians need either to carry separate wire turning pliers and strippers or they must do a make-shift job.

One of the objects of this invention is to provide electricians pliers which combine the functions of standard blunt nosed, heavy jawed wire cutting pliers, round nose pliers, and wire strippers.

Another object is to provide such pliers which are easy to use, and dependable.

Other objects will become apparent to those skilled in the art in the light of the following description and accompanying drawing.

In accordance with this invention, generally stated, heavy, blunt nose, wire cutting pliers are provided with wire turners mounted in the jaws in such a way that they can he slid to extended and retracted position. Guide means, connected to the wire turnersand projecting from the jaws, permit easy manipulation of the wire turners, and may function to prevent rotation of the wire turners. The wire turners are provided with fiat meeting faces, in which wire stripping notches are formed, the flattened facing surfaces engaging one another When the wire turners are in extended position with the jaws closed. The guide means projectfrom the jaws, and when in the preferred arrangement, they project in a direction parallel with the hinge axis of the pliers, they are positioned on the side of the jaws opposite the side on which the cutters are located. Detent means are cooperably positioned on the jaws and guide means, to hold the guide means, hence the wire turners, in extended and retracted positions.

In the drawing,

FIGURE 1 is a fragmentary top plan view of one illustrative embodiment of electricians pliers of this invention, showing wire turners in extended position;

FIGURE 2 is a fragmentary view in side elevation of the pliers shown in FIGURE 1;

FIGURE 3 is a fragmentary top plan view of the pliers shown in FIGURES l and 2, showing the wire turners in retracted position;

FIGURE 4 is an enlarged sectional view taken along the line 4--4 of FIGURE 3;

FIGURE 5 is an enlarged sectional view taken along the line 5-5 of FIGURE 2; and

FIGURE 6 is an enlarged view in perspective of one embodiment of guide means of this invention.

Referring now to the drawing for one illustrative embodiment of this invention, reference numeral 1 indicates a pair of pliers of the heavy, blunt nose, wire-cutting yp The pliers'l have the usual handles 2, each of which has a jaw 3 formed integrally with the handle.- The jaws 3 have fiat bearing faces 4, at right angles to which a pintle 5 extends, hingedly to connect the jaws. The jaws 3 also have serrated working faces 6, and are cut away between the working faces 6 and the bearing surfaces 4, to form cutters 7. The cutters 7 lie parallel with the bearing faces 4, along a lower side 8 of the plier, as shown in FIG- URES 1-3.

Each of the jaws 3 is provided with a passage 10, opening through the free end of the jaw. In the embodiment shown, the long axes of the passages 10 lie in the plane of the bearing surfaces 4, but are directed convergently, out wardly, with respect to one another. A slot 12 extends through an upper surface 14 of each jaw, parallel with the axis of the passage 10, communicating with the passage 10, and terminating short of the ends of passage 10.

A wire turner 16 is slidably mounted in each passage 10. In the embodiment shown, each of the passages 10 is circular in cross-section, and the wire turners are correspondingly cylindrical at their inner ends. At their outer ends, the wire turners are chamfered to provide fiat meetembodiment consists of a slide button 21, spanning and tracted position. The Wire turners may even be pushed extending beyond the margins of the slot 12, a guide rib 22, integral with the underside of the button 21, and

seated slidably within the slot 12, and a pin 23, shown in this embodiment as integral with the guide rib 22, and securely connected to the wire turner 16 by a driving fit in a radially extending hole 25 in the Wire turner 16.

Keyhole channels 26, formed on the underside of the button 21, are oriented with their narrow channels opening through opposite ends of the button 21, as shown in FIGURES 4-6. The keyhole channels 26 form a part of detent means, the complementary part of which consists of spring loaded ball type detents 27, seated in the jaws 3 immediately beyond the ends of the slots 12. As shown in FIGURES 2 and 4, the detents serve releasabiy to maintain the guide means 20, hence the wire turners 16, in either fully retracted or fully extended position.

It can be seen that the guide means ,20 project from the side 14 of the pliers, opposite the side 8 on which the cutters 7 are located. In this way, the guide means do not interfere with the use of the cutters when close cutting is required.

The wire turners are readily slid to extended or reinto their retracted position against some solid object, without manipulation of the slide button 21. When the wire turners 16 are retracted, the pliers can be used for cutting and for rough and heavy work. When the wire turners are extended, they may be used for pigtail-ing, or, byvirtue of the notches 1'8 and 19, for wire stripping. The notches may be made of any desired size, but are preferably made to accommodate numbers 12 and 14 wire, since these are the most common sizes of wire used by electricians.

Numerous variations in the construction of the pliers of this invention, the scope of the appended claim, will occur to those skilled in the art in the light of the foregoing disclosure. For example, the wire turners can be made to retract entirely within passages 10, by properly proportioning the lengths of the wire turners and passages. The guide means can be varied, as, for example, by providingspn'ng clips on the slide button, and fixed bearing stops on the jaws. This later construc tion, while cheaper than the preferred construction, is more iiable to be damaged than is the guide means of the preferred embodiment.

Thus it can be seen that pliers are provided which combine the functions of standard blunt nosed, heavy jawed wire cutting pliers, round nose pliers and wire strippers,

in one convenient, rugged, and economical tool.

Having thus described the invention, what is claimed and desired to be secured by Letters Patent is:

In .wire cutting electriciari s pliers having heavy, bluntnosed jaws, the improvement comprising wire turners slidaibly, extensibly, and retraetably mounted in said jaws, and guide' means'connected to said wire turners and projecting from-said jaws for manipulation of said wire ,turns to extended and retracted positions, and detent means 'cooperably positioned on said jaws and said guide jaw through a slot, each'of the guide means comprising 15 a slide button spanning and extending beyond the margins of said slot, a guide rib on the underside of said slide button and seated slidably Within the slot, and a pin connected to the guide rib and to the wire turner, and each of the detent means comprising keyhole channels on the undersurface of said slide button and spring loaded bal-l type detents, aligned to said keyhole channels, mounted in said jaw at both ends of said slot.

References Cited in thefile of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS Hughes Nov. 7, 1922 Shekerjian Dec. 27, 1932 Gary a Dec. 30, 1941 

